head to head · open source
Ollama vs GPT4All
Ollama has 185,702 GitHub stars, 18,873 forks, 3,957 open issues and last shipped yesterday. GPT4All has 77,347 stars, 8,261 forks, 771 open issues and last shipped 1.4 years ago. Ollama leads on adoption by 140% (185,702 vs 77,347 stars). Ollama is written in Go under MIT; GPT4All is written in C++ under MIT. Ollama has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, GPT4All 11%. Ollama was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| Ollama | GPT4All | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 186K | ★ 77K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Go | C++ |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2025-05-27 |
| Forks | ⑂ 19K | ⑂ 8.3K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Ollama if
- You weight community size — 186K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick GPT4All if
- You want the GPT4All feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You evaluated both and GPT4All fits your workflow better
About Ollama
Ollama Start building with open models. Download macOS or download manually Windows or download manually Linux Manual install instructions Docker The official Ollama Docker image ollama/ollama is available on Docker Hub. Libraries ollama python ollama js Community Discord 𝕏 (Twitter) Reddit Get started You'll be prompted to run a model or connect Ollama to your existing agents or applications such as Claude Code , OpenClaw , OpenCode , Codex , Copilot , and more. Coding To launch a specific integration: Supported integrations include Claude Code, Codex, Copilot CLI, DeepSeek Harness, Droid, and OpenCode. AI…
read the full Ollama overview →
About GPT4All
GPT4All Now with support for DeepSeek R1 Distillations Website • Documentation • Discord • YouTube Tutorial GPT4All runs large language models (LLMs) privately on everyday desktops & laptops. No API calls or GPUs required you can just download the application and get started . Read about what's new in our blog . Subscribe to the newsletter GPT4All is made possible by our compute partner Paperspace . Download Links — Windows Installer — — Windows ARM Installer — — macOS Installer — — Ubuntu Installer — The Windows and Linux builds require Intel Core…
read the full GPT4All overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Ollama or GPT4All more popular?
Ollama has 185,702 GitHub stars and GPT4All has 77,347. Ollama has the larger community by that measure.
Are Ollama and GPT4All free?
Both are open source. Ollama is licensed under MIT and GPT4All under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Ollama and GPT4All?
Ollama is written in Go and GPT4All in C++. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Ollama or GPT4All?
Choose Ollama if you want the larger community (185,702 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose GPT4All if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.